Abstract
Major wars between great powers like the two World Wars and the Cold War during the twentieth century, participated to the second globalization process. But dealing with the relations between globalization and war must not be reduced to warfare as an independent variable. For more than two decades, International Relations (IR) scholars have focused on the transformation of war as a result from globalization. The dynamic shrinking of distance on a large scale caused some effects on warfare, on war but also on models and tools in order to understand these dimensions of strategy. What are the effects of globalization on the transformation of war debate? To what extent some new approaches aim at producing an epistemic revolution? This chapter introduces the classic debate between realisms and liberalisms concerning these links between globalization of war. This debate does not change the epistemic beliefs that lead the academic field in IR contrary to the new wars debate initiated by post-clausewitzian approaches that aims at dissolving the modern distinctions: war and peace, combatant and non-combatant, politics and crime. The chapter ends with a third perspective that describes the impacts of globalization—defined as the development of interdependencies at different levels—on the capacity interaction. In this last perspective, globalization is both a context and an opportunity for actors in order to make war …. but also peace. By coming back to Political theory, analysis of war today shows the emergence of a ‘global state of war’.
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Notes
- 1.
According to Schmidt, this debate is reconstructed in order to justify the opposition between idealists and realists (Schmidt 2012).
- 2.
The academic literature dedicated to this critic is numerous, especially in History of Strategy (look at Van Creveld 1991). Here, I illustrate the impact of globalization on war by focusing on two examples.
- 3.
The historical period she used his clearly narrow because she aims at qualifying the strategic situation after bipolarity that embodied a type of war instead of exploring effects of second globalization since Second World War.
- 4.
Militarism differs from ideology (glorification of the war and the martial values), a specific behaviour (propensity to use force in order to solve a conflict), a budgetary option (increase the importation of armaments), or institutional influence (interpretation according to which the military must access to political power). The notion of militarism in sociology consists in thinking the relationship between militarism and societies, or, more precisely, in examining the social relations, the institutions and the values in relation to the war as well as the preparation of war. Some sociologists refuse to use this concept because of too polysemic. See for instance Der Derian (2012).
- 5.
Privatization appears also in the use of human force unpaid by the Lords of war , whether in sub-Saharan Africa or Asia.
- 6.
Kirshner adopts a similar perspective but he insists in the role of macro-economic factors that makes ‘the resort to arms by States less likely because the macroeconomic discipline demanded by world financial markets, lending institutions, and powerful credit agencies is incompatible with military adventurism’ (Kirshner 2006, 9).
- 7.
Mahan is quoted in the documents produced by NATO concerning global commons: ‘maritime, air, outer space, and cyber space—constitute a universal public good that serves as a crucial enabler of international security and trade. The architecture of the modern international system rests on a foundation of assured access to and stability in the Commons. Alfred Thayer Mahan described the world’s oceans as ‘a great highway ... a wide common’ in his classic 1890 work, ‘The Influence of Sea Power Upon History.’ He further observed that the fundamental purpose of a strong navy was not simply to attack enemies, but to protect maritime trade’. (ACT 2009, ii).
- 8.
Developed for centuries in Philosophy, the concept was first used in IR to deal with the degradation of ecological systems and environmental issues. See Hardin (1968).
- 9.
For an example, see Olivier Roy and Gilles Kepel’s position after the terrorist attacks in France in 2015. Their disagreements have been developed for many years. See Mamdani (2005).
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Ramel, F. (2018). War and Globalization: Understanding the Linkages. In: Bergé, JS., Harnay, S., Mayrhofer, U., Obadia, L. (eds) Global Phenomena and Social Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60180-9_1
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